I finished the book last night around 2:30 am and have let it sink in for a bit. Here are my initial thoughts:

First off, I loved it! The way it went back and forth between the new generation and the parts of the original story we all knew! I told Ashley while I was reading it that it was just making my heart happy.

Hermione freaking Granger as Minister for Magic <3

I wasn't sure how I felt about Ron in it because he just felt like a joke character alongside Harry and Hermione at times.

I loved Scorpius actually more than Albus. Albus tended to get on my nerves a bit at certain points.

The return of old characters! Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape! I don't know if it was seeing Snape live to fight against Voldemort or the fact that Rickman passed away last year, but seeing him live again even for a few pages was so wonderful.

I was disappointed that some characters did not make an appearance, though. I would have loved to have seen Neville, more of the Weasleys, and Hagrid. I know we got Hagrid in one scene, but not in future scenes which would have been nice.

I loved how Neville finally got some credit and showing just how important he was.

I know these are all jumbled thoughts, but I'm still processing it all and plan to read it again soon, but I loved it and wanted to post and see if anyone else had finished it yet!

I didn't sleep much Friday night because I was trying to reread the entire series before I read this book. I had only just started Deathly Hallows, so I was up reading really late. Sooo... I accidentally fell asleep around 3 am in the middle of reading Cursed Child, but I'm done now!!

Andddd... I don't even know where to begin with my thoughts, but here are some of them:

I had a feeling Delphi was going to be trouble...
I love how kick-ass Hermione is.. both in the actual timeline and the alternate one where she's part of the resistance when Harry is dead and Voldemort reigns.
I'm kind of disappointed that a lot of Ron's purpose was for jokes.
I wish there was more of Neville but I'm super happy with how they mentioned how important he was to the fall of Voldemort.
I'm a little sad that there was absolutely no Luna.
After years of being "meh" about Dumbledore, I think I really needed to hear that he loved Harry for me to truly like him as a character after Deathly Hallows.
Omg, Snape just makes me so happy. It's so odd seeing him act like that, but it still makes me so happy.
I enjoyed Albus' character but loved Scorpius!
When is there going to be fanfic for this... either Albus/Scorpius or Scorpius/Rose.
I kind of kept getting vibes that reminded me of Rainbow Rowell's Carry On... maybe the Simon/Bash and Albus/Scorpius thing....
When exactly was Delphi conceived and born? Who all knew about her?

After twenty-four hours of digesting the story, here's what I think:

The Good:- Albus Severus
- Scorpius!!
- Albus & Scorpius!!!!!! <3
- Further proof that truly good people can be in Slytherin.
- Harry's blanket
- The fact that Dudley contacted Harry after the Dursleys Departed in the beginning of Deathly Hallows.
- The fact that Harry is struggling as a parent.
- Harry quoted Dumbledore.
- New spells.
- Scorpius said "always."
- Neville getting the credit he's always deserved for what he did to take down Voldemort.
- Seeing Snape alive again.
- Snape accepting his death.
- Seeing Snape fight for the resistance against Voldemort.
- Being totally correct that Delphi is not who she says she is.
- Dumbledore loved Harry. I can finally like Dumbledore now.
- Draco has been redeemed.
- I am more approving of Harry/Ginny now.
- Draco and Hermione.
- Seeing Hagrid retrieve baby Harry from Godric's Hollow.
- Harry also hates pigeons.
- The Harry Potter magic. <3

The Bad:- The trolley witch. Why was this necessary?! Except, I am slightly amused at the adventure of James and Sirius trying to escape her and get off the train.
- The riddles to get the Time-Turner. Maybe I was just really sleepy by this point but I just couldn't picture how this scene was happening at all.
- I don't like the idea of Albus-pretending-to-be-Ron kissing Hermione.
- Ron marrying Padma in the alternate reality. Somehow, even with things slightly different, I don't see this ever happening, but whatever.
- Hermione teaching DADA?! Even if it's an alternate reality, I could picture almost any other subject over that one.
- Why is Moaning Myrtle no longer...moaning? I feel like this ruins her character.
- I don't believe that Voldemort would have made Umbridge Headmistress of Hogwarts, out of anyone he could have chosen.
- Cedric Diggory being a Death Eater - no, just no, I can't see that ever happening.
- The time-turning after Scorpius went back to a past where Harry was dead and there was Voldemort day and Hermione/Ron/Snape were part of the resistance.. it seemed disjointed and I didn't follow it.
- How can Harry speak Parseltongue if he no longer has part of Voldemort's soul inside of him?
- I didn't get enough of the new characters because it kept going back and forth between the two generations.
- I feel like more would have been changed my alterting the past than what was, but that's just me.
- Parts read a little bit like a fanfiction.

The Meh:- Why is the epilogue slightly different. This irks me.
- What happened to Hugo Weasley? Lily Luna Potter?
- Why is the Sorting Hat walking? I'm confused...
- Why is Ron just there to make jokes? Ugh.
- Voldemort having a kid.
- I couldn't have cared less that Craig died.
- I want more Neville.
- Why is Ron in charge of the joke shop? Where is George.
- WHERE THE HECK IS LUNA?!
- I reallyyyy wanted the little boy who said "nice costume, mister" to Voldemort to be Albus as some sort of distraction in their plan.
- I don't believe that Harry and Ginny are anti-sweets.

The Questions:- When was Delphi conceived?
- Who babysat Delphi during the Battle of Hogwarts?
- Who all knew about Delphi?
- Who is the cursed child?
- How much longer do I have to wait for Scorpius/Rose or Scorpius/Albus fanfic?!

Summary:On a whole, I loved it. It brought me back to that magical world of Harry Potter. It introduced two characters (Albus and especially Scorpius) that I love. I saw into the post-Deathly Hallows lives of the characters I grew up with. I got to once again see and hear from beloved characters that had died. I'll even argue against some of the complaints with the story. Realistically though, it's nothing like the other seven Harry Potter books. I feel like I need to actually see the play to judge, but I'll admit that it felt very fanfic-y at times and was just giving me what I wanted after a Harry Potter book drought of nine years, and not what should happen. There were a lot of parts that I just couldn't seem to wrap my head around, couldn't help laughing at the ridiculousness of it, or were frustrated that this is how the story was going. It's not perfect and it's never going to be what everyone wanted from it, but I still thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

I definitely agree that those are beautiful moments (omg I love them so much!!!), and for me they make up for the fan-fiction-y aspects of some things.

I do also kind of agree that it's making up to Slytherins because we're presented with truly good Slytherin characters in the story, whereas before I feel like even when I tried to argue that Slytherins aren't all evil, people kept coming back with excuses for why no one in that house was as good of a person as those in other houses.

However, I feel like she may have sort of made things worse for Hufflepuffs though. Cedric Diggory was the one of the very few Hufflepuffs we got to know, and he was a truly good character. I don't think you could have found much fault with him. But now... him becoming a Death Eater simply because he was humiliated and lost miserably during the Triwizard Tournament (which I have a hard time seeing as is)... I feel like that sort of ruins his character... for me at least.

I could not agree more with what you said about Cedric! I can't imagine the character becoming a Death Eater, and I really don't like him being written that way. My guess is that Rowling felt he didn't have much of a fan base and thought it would be ok to use his character that way. I hate that she threw him under the bus to redeem Slytherin House.

One thing I do remember during one of her more famous interviews about the upcoming Fantastic Beasts movies (except we didn't know the names of the movies, or anything about them whatsoever) was that she really didn't like how some in the fandom viewed Hufflepuff House. I remember her daughter said we should all want to have some Hufflepuff traits, or something similar. Rowling said the movie would, in part, redeem that House. (Of course, on HOL, we know Hufflepuffs are wonderful!!) I know the Scamanders are linked with Hufflepuff, right? Even though apparently now American is getting its own School and Houses?

I'm thinking JKR helped write the play as her final attempt to make it up to Slytherins, and there will be no more Potter writing. Scamander will make it up to Hufflepuffs, somehow, and tthe American School movies are the direction she's headded in, along with her books in other genres.

I was able to pick up the book yesterday afternoon and finished it yesterday night, so here are my thoughts!

Overall, I wasn't really surprised with the direction the book went. Like Ashley said, I knew that Delphi would be nothing but trouble as soon as they introduced her character and she set off to help Scorpius and Albus bring back Cedric (also... Delphini, Nagini, am I weird to feel like that wasn't a coincidence?). I disliked her from the beginning and I just knew she was going to mess something up. I'm also not a huge fan of the fact that she's Voldemort's daughter. When did this happen? From what I understood, she was only a couple years older than Albus and Scorpius, so I just don't understand the timeline.

I want more Rose! I love Rose as a character and I feel like as some people can relate to Albus or Scorpius, I relate to her the most. We have the same personality and I just missed her attitude during the book! I realize that there will probably be tons of fanfics about Rose/Scorpius and even more about Albus/Scorpius, but I'm not sure if I could really be as into them as I was into this book.

I was so excited to read this and it kept me entertained and interested long enough to finish it, even though it wasn't entirely by JKR. Some points of the story seemed very out of character, in my opinion, and I didn't especially like the plot, but it was fantastic getting to read about my favorite characters all over again and spend a little more time in their universe!

However, I really wish I could've seen more of the next generation. We saw very little of James, even less of Lily, some Rose, absolutely no Hugo, Teddy, Victoire, Louis, Dominique, Lorcan, Lysander, Molly, or Lucy. I really wanted to see more of them.

I do like the way JK Rowling redeemed Slytherin. I've always hated the idea of Slytherin being 'the evil House' and Gryffindor being 'the good House'. The fact that the two main characters were Slytherin showed that Slytherins can be good.

I also liked the way Draco redeemed himself. I always knew he was good, at heart.

Honestly, with the whole Ron thing, he never really was useful in the actual series. I didn't really expect him to be any more useful in the Cursed Child. I mean, name one example where Ron genuinely helped things that Hermione couldn't have done in the series.

The trolley lady was a bit much. Very much too much, if that makes sense.

No Luna? Or Neville? Very disappointing.

I knew Delphi was bad. For one thing, I was a little skeptical of the whole Delphi/Albus thing considering she was around twenty years old and he was fourteen.

Voldemort having a daughter... That seems kind of fanfiction to me. I think the story could've been just as good if Delphi was Bellatrix's daughter or something. I get the whole 'she just wanted to see her dad' thing, but realistically, Voldemort is incapable of love and it is unlikely he would ever have a daughter.

The play was actually inconsistent with the series. In the series, you can't change the past, because every change you make has already happened. In the Prisoner of Azkaban, everything Hermione and Harry did had already happened, it wasn't like Buckbeak died and Harry and Hermione went back and changed it to become a different reality. There was no separate reality, because when they changed things in the past it didn't really change things, if that makes any sense. In the play, they are constantly changing things in the past that affect the future, which, according to the series, is impossible. Also, I think at one point Harry uses Wingardium Leviosa on Delphi, which is also impossible because the spell doesn't work on humans.

I wanted to see some George and how he was dealing without Fred,

The Eagles are coming!"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one."

It is used during the Harry/Delphie fight, but not on a person. Harry hides underneath a bench, and Delphi uses it to lift the bench and expose him.

I'll add my thoughts in more detail when I have time, but I saw it a couple of weeks ago and absolutely loved it (with the exception of the one character other people have mentioned). As a play on stage, it's spectacular.

Leonie Hauri wrote:The play was actually inconsistent with the series. In the series, you can't change the past, because every change you make has already happened. In the Prisoner of Azkaban, everything Hermione and Harry did had already happened, it wasn't like Buckbeak died and Harry and Hermione went back and changed it to become a different reality. There was no separate reality, because when they changed things in the past it didn't really change things, if that makes any sense. In the play, they are constantly changing things in the past that affect the future, which, according to the series, is impossible.

I may be completely wrong, but in the book the only thing that happened like that was how the other Harry produced the patronus. The other little things like Macnair not actually killing Buckbeak and hitting the pumpkin with the ax instead, other Hermione throwing the little rock at the back of her head, etc were only shown in the movie. (I think?) I get where you're coming from and while it may be true, I try to think it's not completely the case to reconcile time turning in PoA and Cursed Child.

Leonie Hauri wrote:The play was actually inconsistent with the series. In the series, you can't change the past, because every change you make has already happened. In the Prisoner of Azkaban, everything Hermione and Harry did had already happened, it wasn't like Buckbeak died and Harry and Hermione went back and changed it to become a different reality. There was no separate reality, because when they changed things in the past it didn't really change things, if that makes any sense. In the play, they are constantly changing things in the past that affect the future, which, according to the series, is impossible.

I may be completely wrong, but in the book the only thing that happened like that was how the other Harry produced the patronus. The other little things like Macnair not actually killing Buckbeak and hitting the pumpkin with the ax instead, other Hermione throwing the little rock at the back of her head, etc were only shown in the movie. (I think?) I get where you're coming from and while it may be true, I try to think it's not completely the case to reconcile time turning in PoA and Cursed Child.

You have a point. It's been a while since I have read the books and therefore I do not really remember the book-to-movie changes very well. I suppose I should revise my statement to: The play was inconsistent with the movie series.

The Eagles are coming!"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one."